Heatmaster g200 opinions. new user

[stanwich]

Good morning everyone! First time homeowner here about to move in and got a pretty good scare this week.
First a little info about my place. I recently bought a forclosure home in my dream neihbourhood on 6 acres of of treed land (even got a little pond!!) The house was built in 74 and was about 2200 sqft. total. rancher with a walk out basement. All electric heat!.. It gets better!! in 1990 the owner added a 2000 sqft indoor pool room! which ended up getting covered and a subfloor installed. This was heated with an electric furnace but he turned off the furnace and added a gas stove ( looks like a small wood stove but uses gas) Then he just has the furnace ducts for the pool room placed over top of the stove with little fans drawing the air into ducts.......its like a car wreck you cant stop staring at. We went to the gas and electric companies to set up our accounts and found out he was paying 500$ a month between the two. Probably the reason he lost the house. SOOOOOoooooo.... 4200 sq ft total , 75 gallon ELECTRIC hot water tank . smaller detached double garage with 3rd bay for storage. The pool room has about 15ft ceilings, we bought it because our son has cerebral palsy so this will be a great therapy room with no stairs for him to deal with. Im a pretty handy guy so i know i can deal with the owb like a g200 and we have the wood, What are your thoughts on this boiler for my scenario? I was also looking at the porter and main optimizer 250. I really dont want to bother my neihbors with smoke and my local dealer has been talking up the g200 and is willing to sell it for 9000$ canadian. We get temps down to -35 sometimes. Hes got the install priced at 10000 and says a big chunk of that is for glycol to keep the water from freezing .Any thoughts or suggestions!?

 

[maple1]

First off - are you sure you know how much wood you are capable of getting ready each year? I would go into it expecting to use 15 cords per year - and see how that makes you feel.

(As long as it's well insulated and has heat traps and is in good condition, I wouldn't sweat the electric DHW tank - they don't really use that much electricity).

 

[hondaracer2oo4]

15 cords? Where did you base that number from? We can get you a pretty accurate number of wood usage with a g200 if you can give us the numbers from the gas and electric company for usage. Then we can get BTUs used and work from there. I would go with the g200 over the P&M. The G200 got really great efficiency numbers from the EPA test and is WAY less money then the P&M. $9000 for a 2015 G200 is a really good price. I bought mine as a show boiler and the new price on it for 2015 is 10,995 retail. I haven't received it yet, coming in October, but I researched all over the board and ended up with the G200. You will need under 25% moisture content wood though. If you plan on installing this year you are going to need buy your wood this year already seasoned.

 

[maple1]

That was just a guess, going by 4000sq.ft. plus garage and -35c temps with an OWB. (Which on second look doesn't seem to quite jive with $500/MO heating bills).

My main point was, lots of people jump into OWBs without fully considering the amount of work to keep them fed with wood. Or even having to make sure it's dry wood which is a further consideration. So even if it doesn't end up at 15, I would start out thinking that much & if 15 turns out to be too much to handle right off, chances are 10-12 would be too.

 

[hondaracer2oo4]

I get it, traditional old style OWB are very inefficient and eat wood like crazy. But you would also likely promote a Garn 1500 or 2000 which is less efficient and more dirty then a Heatmaster G100 or G200. Now that the EPA rules have kicked in, the new OWB are going to be WAY more efficient. Just because its not inside a little shed outside and it is meant to be a stand alone unit doesn't mean that its a bad product now. I don't know if you have looked into the G200 that he is asking about but you will be surprised to see the numbers that they got from the EPA tests.

Ultimately you guys are a smart bunch on the Hearth forum and I would think that you would want to see the actual heat usage numbers from last year so that we could come up with a real number of BTU's used and base everything from there.

 

[PassionForFire&Water]

For what it is worth, EPA test results and real world usage is like black and white ..... .

 

[stanwich]

Thanks for the replies! I wont be able to get any real figures till after this weekend when we finally get to move in. I wasnt sure if that hwt was a big draw on electricity or not . It still boggles me how his elec bill could have been that high when he claims he was using the gas instead. We use the equal payment plan over the year to offset the expensive winter months and they have his elec set at $250. i do have a clip on energy detective that i will install to figure out where the draw is coming from. 15 cords is alot of wood , We do have alot of dried beetle kill wood around here, i was hoping i could take advantage of it for the first year to get me going. I really dont have much time to get this set up . on average what would you say a cord of wood costs?

 

[Karl_northwind]

Thanks for the replies! I wont be able to get any real figures till after this weekend when we finally get to move in. I wasnt sure if that hwt was a big draw on electricity or not . It still boggles me how his elec bill could have been that high when he claims he was using the gas instead. We use the equal payment plan over the year to offset the expensive winter months and they have his elec set at $250. i do have a clip on energy detective that i will install to figure out where the draw is coming from. 15 cords is alot of wood , We do have alot of dried beetle kill wood around here, i was hoping i could take advantage of it for the first year to get me going. I really dont have much time to get this set up . on average what would you say a cord of wood costs?

The wood question is one much better asked locally. you're talking to people from all over north america here (and a few europeans)

15 cords is not out of line with an OWB and a normal household usage, but hopefully going with a gasser could cut that nearly in half.
if you can put said gasser inside and burn it with storage, you'll do even better.

I prefer the ASTM 2618 test, but what ya gonna do. at least the EPA test has real numbers you can look at to compare different stoves. Singing: "if I dint' had EPA numbers, I'd have no numbers at all!"

In BC you're likely in Hydro power territory. what are you paying for a KWH before we concentrate on the dollars?

 

[stanwich]

So i had another talk with the furnace provider and hes saying its going to be $21000 without the glycol. What type of glycol do you guys use ? im looking at temps of about -30 to -35 celcius. So im trying to find a 2 decently priced barrels (90 gallons)

 

[maple1]

Holy crap - that is a huge jump from $9000 to $21000. What changed?

OK, I went back & looked - it was 9000 plus 10,000 install that a big chunk of was glycol. Which isn't included any more. I have no idea what glycol costs, but seems the price has gone up a lot. How much underground piping will there be & exactly what kind will be used? That will likely be the most important part if the install, looking back to now from 5 years later. The good stuff is between $10 & $20 per foot.

 

[Wisneaky]

There is a member on here that heated 2400 sq ft. Last year with a g200 and used less than 4 cords of wood.

 

[Karl_northwind]

we would need to know what is included in the install before commenting. If you were all electric heat, you likely are looking at an entirely new heat distribution system in the house(cuz you can't heat electric baseboards with hot water) that price sounds reasonable for a complete distribution system, underground piping, install, etc. does that include trenching? hundreds of feet of underground pipe? are those Cdn $? I'm sure everything is more expensive on an island, It is around here.

 

[maple1]

I think he mentioned it is an electric furnace - in which case it might just be putting an HX in the ductwork.

 

[rkusek]

Holy crap - that is a huge jump from $9000 to $21000. What changed?

OK, I went back & looked - it was 9000 plus 10,000 install that a big chunk of was glycol. Which isn't included any more. I have no idea what glycol costs, but seems the price has gone up a lot. How much underground piping will there be & exactly what kind will be used? That will likely be the most important part if the install, looking back to now from 5 years later. The good stuff is between $10 & $20 per foot.

So i had another talk with the furnace provider and hes saying its going to be $21000 without the glycol. What type of glycol do you guys use ? im looking at temps of about -30 to -35 celcius. So im trying to find a 2 decently priced barrels (90 gallons)

Run away from that as fast as you can.

 

[Wisneaky]

Glycol is around $13 a gallon. Maybe more or less depending on where you live.

 

[jasonh]

Stanwich, talk with Karl. I called him about a month ago about a g100 and we talked for a good half hour or so. Good guy and very knowledgeable. Answered all my questions and then some. Good luck.